ARTICLES ABOUT TRUST BY DATE - PAGE 4

Phil Shucet is a confidence man — but not in the way that word is used to describe a swindler who tries to win the confidence of victims so he can defraud them. The new head of Hampton Roads Transit is out to restore confidence in that agency and, to the extent that ripples spread out from good deeds, to government in general. He's the "un-con" man, since he's trying to be extra open and fair. He's doing it by being frank about and fixing the shortcomings of the agency, which runs bus service throughout the region.

Whom do you trust? Not, if you're like most Americans, the government. That's not news. But pollsters are doing what they do best, telling us what we think: Americans are downright dubious about what they're up to in Washington. They suspect that government "of the people, by the people, for the people" has turned into government of the people by the arrogant for the favored few. So when "the people" were polled by the Pew Research Center, they reported what the center called "epic discontent with Congress and elected officials."

This May 4 City Council election is a critical one in Hampton, for a variety of reasons. First, because momentous challenges/opportunities lie ahead. One is to do all it can to steer the state, which is in the driver's seat when it comes to the reuse of Fort Monroe, in a direction that will help the city recover from the loss of thousands of jobs. Another is getting the revitalization of Buckroe right, with development that reverses its decline but not at the expense of the public's enjoyment of the beach.

Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was sitting cross-legged on a red carpet under a hastily erected tent in the dusty Afghan agricultural district of Marja, which had been "cleared" of Taliban by thousands of U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers over the previous seven weeks. He was surrounded by four dozen bearded men in black-and-gray turbans who wanted to know if the U.S. troops would remain, and whether they would destroy the poppy crops in the area. Marja is located in Helmand province, the opium poppy capital of the world, and the Taliban use the crop to finance their operations.

When was the last time you knew an elected official who actually followed through on their campaign promises? Only three people come to mind, and Pat Woodbury is one of them. Like so many of you, I am tired of candidates/elected officials who are more concerned with fulfilling their own personal agenda. They promise one thing and do another. Woodbury has been an educator and a school board member. As a member of the Newport News City Council, she is an articulate advocate against frivolous spending.

Here's something to rile just about anybody with a sense of fair play: A pro-life group that opposes abortion got a bill introduced in the General Assembly to allow the sale of "Choose Life" license plates, with proceeds going to pregnancy centers that don't offer abortion in any way. The group even pre-sold hundreds of license plates, as required, on this understanding. Then, in a dastardly switcheroo, Planned Parenthood hijacked the bill. Convinced a pro-choice delegate to amend it to divert those proceeds to centers that DO offer abortion.

Technically speaking, he's the new kid on the block. Although everyone understood from the outset that Stan Sexton was anything but new to the Phoebus football program. He had, after all, been an assistant under Bill Dee for 14 years. But in the four seasons he spent as head coach at Warwick, the Phantoms won two Group AAA Division 5 state championships and just missed a third. The program had become arguably the best in the state during his absence. So when Sexton returned to Ireland Street, he vowed not to change much.

Even before he used his influence as vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee to plug money in the state budget to create ODU's Center for Teacher Quality and Educational Leadership, Del. Phil Hamilton was telling top ODU officials he wanted a job with the center. He was even spelling out how much he needed to be paid, in the same breath as reporting on how he was proceeding to get the 2007 General Assembly to put up the money. Once $500,000 a year was in place, Hamilton was hired for a loosely defined, part-time position as director for $40,000 a year.

Con artists are always with us. They're constantly reinventing themselves. There are several key points to be aware of in order to protect yourself: Don't be afraid to delete the e-mail (preferably before opening it), toss the mail or hang up the phone. Don't worry about being polite. The longer you stay on the line, the greater your chance of being scammed or parting with money. Always be very wary if you didn't initiate the contact; take basic precautions and don't give any personal information over the phone ---- not just the obvious like your address or bank information, but also about your car ---- if you haven't initiated the contact.